


The Ghost of Li'l Sebastian

by Nutriyum_Addict



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Break Up, Dream Sex, F/M, Ghosts, Halloween, Happy Ending, Haunting, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutriyum_Addict/pseuds/Nutriyum_Addict
Summary: For the absolutely delightful prompt: The Halloween gif you posted earlier has made me think of this fic prompt: Ben is haunted by the ghost of Li'l Sebastian who won't go away until Ben does a favor for him :)I have NO idea how this got this long. It is truly silly. I hope you enjoy!





	

**October 27, 2011**

It starts like this: around noon on a Thursday, Ben receives a single text message.

_Help me._

He doesn't recognize the number and he's a bit puzzled, to say the least.

His first irrational, deep-in-the-gut thought is of Leslie, but he saw her in the hallway only a few minutes ago (she had looked very pretty in that blue and white polka dot dress, not that he was staring or anything). Just to be safe, after he does notice her dress for a moment or two, he quickly ducks into a conference room to avoid another awkward interaction with his ex-girlfriend.

Instead of being forced to have an uncomfortable moment in the hall with her, he's forced to pretend like he meant to crash a sanitation department meeting. Sewage Joe is no longer around but that doesn't mean that Ben leaves the room feeling any less grossed out. But still, it's better than interacting with Leslie and having to deal with how much he misses her.

So...yeah, he's pretty sure the text is not from her, least of all because it's from a phone number that he doesn't recognize.

 _Who is this?_ Ben types, as he walks back to his office.

After a few minutes he shrugs and puts the phone back in his pocket, but when it alerts him with a noise about an hour later, he sees another of the same message.

 _Help me_.

He tries again: _who is this?_

Ben is about to give up on this whole weird and pointless exchange and get back to the spreadsheet open on his desktop when a new text pops up on his phone.

This time it's two different words: _Li'l Sebastian._

* * * * *

Of course, Ben calls the number and gets a message about it not being in service any longer. He does a google search on the digits and comes up with no information from the reverse look-up.

Ben even tries Pawnee's favorite search engine, AltaVista with a roll of his eyes but he gets the same answer. Nothing found for the number that he's receiving texts from--the texts supposedly from a dead pony. Alright. Sure, he thinks, this is something that can happen a few days before Halloween.

"It's got to be April," Ben says out loud to the empty office.

 _It's not April_ , the mysterious texter replies.

Ben makes a face and throws his phone towards the row of books stacked along the edge of his desk.

Okay, now he's freaked out.

* * * * *

After work, Ben is still trying to calm his nerves and get a handle on what's going on.

He's deep in thought and staring down at his phone, scrolling through the impossible messages when he walks into his house and...gets hit by a skeleton surprise. Of all the things he hates, being startled by a Halloween decoration is right up there.

Of course, the skeleton prop was set up by his roommates, who apparently were going to have a Halloween party without telling him. It makes sense, he thinks, it's not like he told them he was planning on doing work all night, quietly in his room. So, yep. Completely fair point.

During the night, he manages to keep Orin out of his bedroom, but Ben also gets sat on, wrestled, and dry-humped(?) by Andy, before he accidentally breaks the man's nose. Honestly after all of that drama and the resulting trip to the emergency room, Ben almost forgets about the whole Li'l Sebastian thing.

It's when he's finally getting ready for bed that his phone lets him know that he has a new message--one of four that are waiting for him.

_Are you going to help me?_

_I'm not leaving until you do._

_I'm haunting you. Boo._

_I want carrots._

"Okay," Ben says out loud again to an empty room (great, he's starting to talk to himself now), pulling his plaid pajama pants up the rest of the way and getting into bed. "This is not even scary. This is ridiculous."

 _Who are you really?_ Ben types.

_I told you. Li'l Sebastian._

_I have an honorary degree from Notre Dame University and I need you to do me a favor._

_Even though you don't seem to do much except get pushed around by the big guy._

Ben makes a face, before eating a fun-size Butterfinger with a sigh. He'd managed to snag one earlier when they got back from the hospital before April could try to grab it out of his hand again. While he chews, he decides that this is the strangest fucking day that he's had since he's lived in Pawnee. And that's saying a whole lot. He also can't help but think that Leslie would know exactly what to do in this ridiculous situation.

Ben crumples up the discarded candy wrapper and tosses it towards the trash can by his desk. He misses.

Of course, he knows what Leslie would do and he's pretty positive that he's going to regret it, but he types: w _hat do you need?_

Li'l Sebastian tells him.

Apparently, the mini-horse needs a permanent memorial--somewhere Pawneeans can go and remember him and sing 5,000 Candles in the Wind. Where they can light their own candles and leave wreaths to his memory.

He can't move on until he gets one and for the last five months he's been wandering around Pawnee, feeling aimless and lost, until he decided that he needed to partner up with a living person for some help.

Perfect, Ben thinks. Of course it turns out that Li'l Sebastian needs a permanent memorial _exactly_ like the one that his ex-girlfriend is trying to raise the funds for, through a memorial task force that Ben knows is currently $1500 away from purchasing a Li'l Sebastian statue and pedestal from Statue of Limitations, Pawnee's marble and bronze statue emporium.

Ben knows all of this because he is on Leslie's personal fundraising email list (he didn't ask, she just added his non-government email a couple of months ago, because of course, she did), and he's been reading through the updates briefly before deleting.

"Oh my god, why don't you haunt her then?" He complains, forgetting to type out his question.

_Because I picked you. Bob Wyatt._

"My name is Ben," he mutters back, rolling his eyes.

That's right, he remembers. He doesn't have to use his phone to communicate to... _whoever_ is texting him, which is both convenient and super creepy.

"Ben Wyatt. Assistant City Manager. And since we're becoming such _good_ friends here, I should tell you that I never got what the big deal about you was, I only pretended, because she..." he trails off before he can say, _because she thought you were important_. "You're just a pony. And now, you're the ghost of a pony. And I don't believe in you."

He hopes Li'l Sebastian gets sarcasm. And then he frowns as the floor beside the bed dampens and then grows wet with a large puddle.

 _Great friends_ , the small horse texts back using his supernatural mini-horse powers.

_And I can urinate freely all night, buddy. Believe in that._

* * * * *

Oddly enough, that evening Ben doesn't dream about Li'l Sebastian or Halloween ghosts or even breaking Andy's nose during a party.

He dreams about Leslie.

They're in his bed and she's naked and his nose pressed between her thighs. He's licking and fingering her and good lord, she's also got his dick in her mouth. In the dream, he's on top and it feels so good and Leslie's also giggling around him and fuck, she's so good at this even when she's laughing, her whole mouth is warm, wet, and vibrating, and then...Ben is surrounded by harsh daylight as he slowly blinks up at his ceiling.

"Fuck." He can still taste her in his mouth.

His phone chirps at him. Ben reaches for it off the bedside table and when his eyes adjust to the light, he reads: _why is your penis doing that?_

He looks down and yep, there's a fairly obvious erection-tent under the covers. Ben rubs his forehead and tries to formulate an adequate response to Li'l Sebastian's question. He starts to go with an answer that refers to his own unfortunate viewing of mini-horse's shockingly huge mini-horse boner (he still doesn't understand why no one photoshopped that out), but he thinks better of it.

"Look, this is my house, okay? And if you're going to haunt me and stay in my room, you can…deal with my penis doing things."

Crap. That sounds bad. "You know what I mean. It was a dream, okay? Trust me, it's not you," he adds with a grimace.

_Is it the blonde?_

_She had nice legs._

_She looked like she was a willing sexual partner._

"Cool it. I'm not discussing this with you," Ben says, tossing his phone on the bedside table.

Normally, he'd stay in bed and _take care of things_ , but it's pretty obvious that right now, that would only make both Ben and his unwelcome guest uncomfortable. Plus, there's no way he's jerking off in front of a ghost, that's just Orin-levels of bizarre.

Ben opts to get up, head to the bathroom and the shower, and think about his dream in private. But, before he opens his bedroom door, he turns back around and notices a very clear indentation on the other side of his bed. An indentation on the mattress about the size of a mini-horse.

"Are you kidding me? Are you seriously on my bed right now?"

There's a beep from his phone but Ben makes another face, before heading towards the shower. He'd much rather fantasize about _sixty-nining_ his ex-girlfriend than deal with the strange reality of an animal ghost making himself right at home on his bed.

* * * * *

After his stress-releasing shower, Ben and Li'l Sebastian reach an agreement. Ben will help the mini-horse get his memorial and Li'l Sebastian will not pee on Ben's bedroom floor.

The obvious solution, Ben realizes as he uses his bedroom mirror to adjust his blue striped tie, is that he writes a check for the remaining funds, quickly hands it off to Leslie, and _bam_ , problem solved.

Except there are a couple of huge problems with that, one being that he doesn't want to actually spend $1500 on a pony memorial. The other one? They don't really have the type of relationship anymore where Ben could write her a check for that amount. Plus, Ben really doesn't want to interact with Leslie on that level right now. Or on any level, to be honest.

It just makes him too sad.

Sure, he's left her an anonymous $10 or $20 towards her fundraising in an envelope every so often, but he's not about to leave fifteen-hundred in cash on her desk overnight.

He sighs and looks around the room. He has no idea where his new roommate even is. Ugh. Is he still on his bed?

"Alright, I've got to go. What happens now?" Ben asks the seemingly empty room."Do you stay here or do you follow me around all day?"

He reads the text as soon as it appears.

_Are you going to do anything interesting?_

"Well," Ben deadpans, "I'm going to go to work because I'm the Assistant City Manager. Oh and yeah, I might squeeze in a few minutes to help you out."

 _Eh_ , texts his ghostly companion.

_I'll stay here._

Ben decides that Li'l Sebastian is kind of a dick.

* * * * *

Later that morning, he's in Ken Hotate's office, at the Wamapoke Casino.

It's a long shot, but Ben is hoping that maybe the tribal leader can, A: give him some pointers on dealing with spirits and B: donate the remaining $1500 to the Li'l Sebastian memorial.

Right now, though, neither is seeming too likely. It's not going to well.

"You just thought that I would be able to help you with a ghost problem?"

"Um, well, you seem to know a lot about curses?" Ben tries and watches as Ken narrows his eyes a bit. "Again, I'm really not trying to insinuate that because you're Native American that you know more about horse ghosts than anyone else would, but--"

"No," Ken waves him off. "It's okay. I know about horse ghosts. So he wants a memorial and he won't leave until you help him? You must feel very honored to have Li'l Sebastian haunting you."

Ben nods. "Yeah. It's great."

"Isn't that memorial something that Leslie Knope is trying to arrange?"

"She is," Ben says, sitting up straighter. "But--"

"So why don't you give her the money?"

"It's complicated. We, um, well, we don't really interact much anymore."

"Here are two more things I know about white people," Ken says, nodding at Ben, "Besides the liking Rachael Ray and the believing in curses things. They also like to complicate relationships and freak out over ghosts."

Ben sighs as he tries to forget that he masturbated just this morning to thoughts of Leslie when he was in the shower. Nope. Not complicated at all.

"Look, I don't know a whole lot about Pawnee and Wamapoke history, so I can't really butter you up with anecdotes about your tribes' history--"

"Well, it was mostly being massacred," Ken reminds him.

"Yes. Exactly. And that's horrible so here's an uncomplicated idea. Is there any way you can just blow some more dust in my face and make this whole thing not be happening?"

"No," Ken tells him. "Curse-lifting dust does not work on animal spirits. You're basically stuck with him until he resolves whatever is holding him back. Can you see him? Is he here now?"

Ben watches as Ken straightens his bolo tie and looks around the room excitedly. Really, he thinks, him too?

"No. He texts me. And um, he's at the house right now. At least I think he is. He's probably peeing on my bedroom floor and sleeping on my bed."

"Interesting," Ken comments, with a slight tone of disappointment to learn that it's just Ben in his office.

"Alright, how about this--the Wamapoke Casino writes a donation check for the full $1500, but I'll chip in $500 behind the scenes, and the Wamapoke Tribe takes all the credit for the donation. It's great publicity."

Ken studies him, giving nothing away. "You're an accountant, right?"

"Yeah," Ben responds tentatively.

"You chip in $700 and you do my taxes in the spring."

"Seriously?"

The tribal leader nods. "I'm looking for a new accountant and I've heard you're quite a numbers robot. Do we have a deal?"

Ben considers this. It would certainly solve the problem. And, well, he does like doing taxes. And since Ken Hotate is a registered member of the Wamapoke Tribe, he can get his feet wet in a number of federal deductions and credits based on Ken's tribal status.

Fuck. That actually sounds fun, Ben thinks. He tries to hide his growing smile.

"Deal," he stands and shakes the man's hand. "So, uh, when can you give Leslie the money? I'd kind of like to get this taken care of as soon--"

"I'll drop a check by City Hall later today," Ken interrupts. "And I'll be in touch in the new year about my taxes. You can make _your_ check out to the Wamapoke Tribal Council right now. Here's a pen."

* * * * *

True to his word, that afternoon Ben happens to be around to see Ken Hotate present Leslie with a donation check for $1500 from the Wamapoke Casino.

She smiles and screams with happiness and gives Ken a huge hug right in the hallway--even though almost half of that hug should be for him. Ben smiles briefly at the scene before he starts walking back to his office. On the way, he takes out his phone and sends a message to Li'l Sebastian.

There's no reply all afternoon, but still, when he gets home, Ben takes a sage bundle out of his briefcase. Ken had stopped by and given it to him after delivering the check to Leslie, telling him that it would help cleanse his room. Ben is not really sure if the tribal leader was messing with him or not, but he figures it can't hurt.

He gives it a try. Hopefully his human roommates won't come barging in because they think he's getting stoned. All he needs is those two trying to smoke his room-cleansing sage.

"Hello? Are you still here? Um, I'm burning sage. I think that's supposed to help you...go into the light?" Ben says, shrugging, as he waves it around his bedroom. "You know, horsey heaven? Because you finished your unfinished business. Right?"

Maybe it's the cleansing scent now wafting through his bedroom, but soon Ben finds himself walking over to Leslie's book, _Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America_ , where it's been on his shelf since she gave it to him a couple of months ago. He opens it up and takes out the newspaper clipping and stares down at the image in his hand.

It's an article about the Harvest Festival and there's a big photo of Li'l Sebastian in his pen and he and Leslie are standing there, so close that their arms are touching.

She's all sunny and bright and smiling at Li'l Sebastian and in the photo, Ben is smiling at her.

His initial intent was to make a cleansing break from _everything_ and crumple the page up and recycle it, but he just can't. Instead, Ben tacks it up on the corkboard above his desk. He figures there's no harm leaving it up for the evening.

There's no sign of Li'l Sebastian's ghost the rest of the night.

When Ben wakes up the next morning, there are a bunch of fresh carrots on the pillow next to him. He checks his phone.

_I picked you because I knew you would do it for her._

_The one that makes your penis stand up straight in the morning._

_She already wanted to help me. But she needed help._

_And you helped her._

_Thank you._

Okay, Ben thinks, maybe Li'l Sebastian is not _quite_ as much of a dick as he initially thought.

* * * * *

**October 29, 2016**

"Good pony!" Sonia says, turning in his arms to reach out and pat the bronze statue of Li'l Sebastian on the head.

Ben smirks and secretly feels so much pride that he could burst. But, then he thinks better of it and gently corrects his 23-month-old daughter.

"It's a _mini-horse_ , sweetheart. Li'l Sebastian, remember? Like mommy's stuffed animal. He's not a pony."

He kisses Sonia's forehead. It's a bit chilly out and she's wearing a gray knit hat over her blonde hair. It has kitten ears and it's completely adorable.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that five years ago he and Leslie were broken up, he was miserable, and, well, that he was being haunted by Pawnee's most famous four-legged citizen. Occasionally, he'll feel like it must have all been a dream, but then he'll root around in his desk drawer and find the half-burnt bundle of dried sage that Ken Hotate had given him that afternoon at City Hall.

"Good mini-horsey, daddy!"

Ben smiles and pulls the carrot bunch out of the shopping bag hooked around his shoulder.

He and Leslie and all the kids will be back here next month, for their annual _Li'l Sebastian Statue Dedicating Day_ holiday, but October 29th is a special date that Ben tries to commemorates too--the day Li'l Sebastian left him _thank you_ carrots and was finally able to move on.

He'd missed the first anniversary because he was in DC, and last year because of triplet craziness, but he usually tries to leave some carrots for the mini-horse at his memorial. A small token of his gratitude that Li'l Sebastian kept his word and stopped haunting him. And got out of his bedroom.

Ben still doesn't quite get this town's fascination with Li'l Sebastian, but he does have a bit of a soft spot for the li'l guy now.

Today, he's sharing the moment with Sonia--mainly because she was the triplet that Ben took on his quick trip to the grocery store.

"You want to leave some carrots for the mini-horsey?"

He carefully sets Sonia down on the ground, tugs her warm hat a little bit further down to cover her ears, and hands her the carrots by the green, leafy tops.

"Put them down over there, honey," he points to the base of the statue where there are flowers, Sweetums candies, and what looks like some dog chew toys and watches from an arm's length as Sonia toddles over and places the carrots next to some roses.

"Carrots mini-horsey," she tells him with a nod and a smile, looking exactly like a mini-Leslie.

Ben nods back and scoops her up. "Good job, pumpkin."

Sonia giggles and snuggles into him, as Ben hugs her tighter to keep his daughter warm.

He figures if Sonia excitedly mentions dropping off carrots at a horse statue when they get back home, he'll finally tell Leslie the whole story: how for two days, Li'l Sebastian became Ben's unwanted, ghostly roommate and how he did a favor for Pawnee's world-famous mini-horse. It does make a pretty good Halloween tale, he supposes. Maybe he'll just leave out the part about his dream and how he thought about her in the shower.

But then Ben reconsiders. Well, if the kids are in bed for the night...


End file.
